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July 14, 2010

Historic family business Rogers Jewelers sold to Valley attorneys Mike and Kal Ellis

Arthur Foulkes The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — A  longtime downtown Terre Haute business has changed hands after nearly 70 years in the same family.

Benton Stein, former owner of Rogers Jewelers at 530 Wabash Ave., sold his historic family business to local attorneys Mike and Kal Ellis on July 1, Mike Ellis said.

Ellis said he plans to remodel the business property and reopen the jewelry store soon – perhaps within a month. The plan is to keep the name “Rogers Jewelers,” he said.

A second level within the business will become a gift shop called Simply Unique, Ellis said. That business and the jewelry store will be managed by his wife, Pamela Ellis.

“It’s a work in progress,” Mike Ellis said of the renovations taking place within the jewelry store, which sits on the northwest corner of Sixth Street and Wabash Avenue. Among other things, the building is getting a new roof, he said.

The jewelry store is currently closed while renovations take place inside. Six or seven people will be employed by the combined jewelry store and gift shop, Ellis said. Anyone who left jewelry at Rogers Jewelers for repair or cleaning will be able to pick up their jewelry after the store reopens, or sooner, if necessary, he added.

A glittering past

E.J. Rogers Jewelers first appeared in the Terre Haute City Directory in 1940 at 530 Wabash Ave. The name “Rogers” came from the first owner of the business, Stein said in an Interview with the Tribune-Star on Wednesday. E.J. Rogers sold the business to another person, who then sold the business to Stein’s father, Ezra, in 1942.

Ezra Stein was later joined by his brother, Phil, in operating Rogers Jewelers. An ad published in 1947 touted Rogers Jewelers as “The Diamond Store of Terre Haute” and notes, “cash or charge, our prices are the same.” After operating the business for several decades with his brother, Ezra Stein passed away in 1973. Phil Stein died six years later in 1979.

Benton Stein took over his family’s business in 1976 after working for the jewelry store on a part-time basis and on-and-off, for several years, he said. He operated the business with his mother, Theresa H. Stein, for several years. She passed away in 1986 at age 79.

“I’ll probably miss it,” Benton Stein said of running the family business. But for health and other reasons, “I think it was time,” he said.

McKeen National Bank

The building housing Rogers Jewelers is one of Terre Haute’s most historic. Not a lot remains of the original structure, however.

“It’s one of the great historic buildings in Terre Haute,” said Mike McCormick, Vigo County historian.

Originally three stories tall with a tower on the northwest corner of the roof, the building was constructed to house a bank owned by William Riley McKeen, a prominent citizen of Terre Haute in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

In addition to being a banker, McKeen was president of the Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad and one of the people instrumental in bringing Indiana State Normal School, which later would become Indiana State University, to the city.

The McKeen bank building was a landmark downtown for several decades, in part because of a statue of the Greek god Mercury high atop the structure. Local lore has it that some Terre Haute residents complained that the statue, which stood a little more than 5 feet in height, was naked (except for a small leaf and a helmet).

According to one story, which is published in a biography about William Riley McKeen written by Richard T. Wallis, a group of “local matrons visited the banker to complain in outraged offense [about the naked Mercury].

“Riley, it was said, walked outside his new building, squinted for a long interval up at the statue placed high above the third story, and then commented that, if the ladies could see anything at all objectionable from that distance, their eyes were a lot better than his.”

That statue of Mercury is on display at the Vigo County Historical Museum. Another statue of the goddess Minerva stood above the main entrance to the McKeen bank. It is unclear what happened to that statue.

Among the last of its kind

According to back issues of the Terre Haute City Directory, the Wabash Federal Savings and Loan Association occupied 530 Wabash Ave. in the 1930s along with the Terre Haute Baseball Fans Association and the Wabash Agency Insurance company. A law school also occupied the building at some point, as well, Stein said.

In one way, the sale of the jewelry business to the Ellises is not surprising. For many years, Mike Ellis spent time in the jewelry store visiting with his friend, Stein.

“I’ve sold many rings there over the years,” Ellis said. Growing up in the retail business, Ellis said he always hated to see customers waiting, so he’d step behind the counter while visiting Stein and make sales.

“We’ve been close for a number of years,” Ellis said of his relationship with the now-retired jeweler.

Rogers Jewelers has been one of downtown Terre Haute’s few remaining retail businesses with a very long history in the heart of the city. Over the decades, Stein said he noticed the change in the downtown as more and more businesses left.

“It was a slow change, but it was a definite change,” Stein said. When asked if he and his family ever considered moving away from the downtown, he said, yes, but that they had become fairly well established and “rather comfortable” at Sixth and Wabash.

“We just got it in our blood, I guess you could say.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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